CBI revealed that it had been alleged that the CMD had demanded and agreed to accept an amount of Rs. 1 crore from the director of a Bilaspur based company who had also agreed to pay this amount to the person nominated by the CMD. This amount was to be paid for a motive or reward for showing favour to the private company in its matters pending in SECL.

For the purpose of receiving aforesaid illegal gratification, CMD of SECL had asked Managing Director of another private company having official dealings with SECL, to detail one of his employee based in Delhi, to collect the money in Delhi on his behalf. CMD also gave a pseudo name to the said employee.

In the follow-up of this conspiracy, an amount of Rs. 80 lacs exchanged hands near a school in Saket in the evening of 25.5.2010.

CBI has also conducted searches at 5 places in Delhi, Bilaspur and Raipur. During investigation, it also came to light that earlier this month, CMD had also taken another amount of about Rs. 50 lacs through the same Delhi based employee of the company, who was used as courier, this time also. For recovering this amount, 4 lockers were searched in Delhi and an amount of Rs. 1.55 Crores has been seized. This is in addition to the amount of Rs. 80 lacs which were transacted on 25.5.2010.

In this case so far 5 persons including CMD of SECL, both the Managing Directors of the two private companies and two couriers have been arrested from Delhi and Bilaspur.br/>The accused will be presented in court today.

16-03-09In a surprising and hard to believe development, the media is abuzz with an announcement that Ashish Singh has been declared the Congress candidate for the Bilaspur Lok Sabha constituency.

Amidst this heightened political activity, late on Sunday evening, the news (rumor) spread that Ashish Singh had become the Congress candidate. Given the way the party works many policatal observers have shrugged off this news as a rumour. They say that it is not the Congress party's style of working to announce the name of its candidate so much in advance.

Even as people await eagerly for the name of the Congress party candidate, Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Dilip Singh Judev has started his election campaign in the district on Saturday.

The element of public anxiety is even more this time in Bilaspur due to the fact that Bilaspur Lok Sabha seat has become an unreserved (general) seat starting this elections after the new delimitation came into effect in 2008.

Earlier it used to be an SC reserved seat. Punnulal Mohle the sitting MP vacated the seat after he won the Assembly polls in December 2008 and became a minister in the state government. Hence both the major parties the BJP and INC will be fielding fresh candidates from this constituency.

Bharatiya Janata Party had announced the name of Dilip Singh Judev as its candidate, more than 10 days ago.

12-12-08Bomb blast in Bilaspur sends shockwaves throughout this peacefully town. According to reports two persons have lost their lives while 3 others are seriously injured.

The incident occurred today, Friday morning around 8:30 in the morning when the shops in the locality had not yet opened, near Bilaspur's busy business Gole Bazar locality close to City Kotwali.

The explosive device went off at a scrap dealer's place (कबाड़ीवाला) near Gole Bazar. According to reports, the explosion happened when some rag-pickers had arrived at the scrapyard to sell scrap that they had collected roaming around the city.

As they were sifting through the items one of the boxes they were handling exploded. The explosion was so big that glass panes of buildings around were shattered.

It appears that the rag-pickers must have picked some unattended items during the night and come to this scrap-dealer to dispose them. If the two killed are the very persons who picked the device it may be difficult to track where it was actually kept.

20-11-08Former president of District Chemists and Druggists Association (DCDA) Murtuza Vanak was beaten reportedly by an group of supporters of Congress party supporters shortly after polling ended in Bilaspur. Murtuza Vanak is also a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

DCDA members have taken strong exception to the attack on their colleague and former president. The executive members of the association convened and emergency in which it was decided to launch an indefinite stir if action against the guilty is not taken by the authorities quickly.

The members of DCDA were categoric about not getting into the politics of the matter. They just want the administration to take action against the guilty persons who had attacked a citizen of Bilaspur who also happens to be a member of their union.

City Kotwali area in Bilaspur remained tensed late in the evening over the issue.

According to reports, Murtuza Vanak was walking away from the polling center at Khaparganj shortly after polling had ended for the day - a little after 5 pm in the evening. A crowd of supporters of the Congress candidate passed shouting slogans for in favour of their candidate. As they were passing a group from the crowd attacked Murtuza and beat him up.

The local shopkeepers who knew Vanak came to his rescue and saved him. As the news of the attack on Murtuza spread, BJP supporters gathered in large numbers in his support and tension prevailed in the locality.

Later, a report was filed at the police station and Murtuza Vanak was admitted to the district hospital.

The officials at the district's election office especially at NIC's computer center were seen working late in the night to process the unexpectedly high number of nominations received on the last day of filing nominations yesterday.

The main battle in Bilaspur is expected to be between sitting MLA and minister in the outgoing state government Amar Agrawal of BJP and Anil Tah of the Congress party.

Both will be facing each other for the third time in a row. In the earlier two elections Anil Tah had lost, but this time the scenario seems to have tilted in his favour.

One interesting thing that has come to the fore in this election at Bilaspur is that there is very little or no in-fighting amongst the different factions of the Congress party. This one single factor has improved the chances of Anil Tah making it to the state assembly this time.

02-11-08Anil Tah has been nominated as the Congress candidate for Bilaspur seat in the 2008 Chhattisgarh State Elections.

The names of Anil Tah, Ajit Jogi, Renu Jogi featured in the list of 48 candidates announced today afternoon. After a pre-poll alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Congress had left out 3 seats out of 51 for NCP in the 2nd phase of Chhattisgarh election.

This will be the third time Anil Tah will be contest from the Bilaspur seat. In both his earlier attempts, he had lost to BJP candidate Amar Agrawal.

The first time he had contested as an independent candidate when he was unable to get the endorsement from his Congress party. In 2003, he had was the official Congress candidate from Bilaspur.

The other prominent names announced from Bilaspur district are former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi from Marwahi and his wife Renu Jogi from Kota seat.

Bhuneshwar Yadav has been declared as the Congress candidate from Beltara seat.

The NCP candidates were announced a couple of days ago - they are Nobel Verma (Chandrapur), Ramanuj Agrawal (Manendragarh) and Lalsai Minj (Samri).